Guests

Audience Questions

Audience QuestionsHour 1

Rick entered a date on his calendar on the iPhone via FantastiCal, and his friend noticed that it appears on his calendar as well. Leo says it will do that if he had set it up that way. The calendar will see that he's put a name in the event and email it as an invitation. It's a nice feature, but scary if he doesn't see it coming.

Rick wants to know where this default behavior is coming from, his iPhone or his Mac. He'll have to go into the settings and disable the invitation option. He may need to also go into iCloud settings or the settings for iOS.

John was planning to cut the cord, so he bought a Roku. He's discovered he doesn't have an HDMI port on his old TV, though. So he needs a new one. Leo says that there's many options that won't break the bank.

Vizio has a great line of affordable HDTVs. He should go as big as he can afford. Leo likes 50" to start and he can get them for around $500.

HiSense is another company making inroads into the market and they're affordable. But are they up to Vizio standards? Leo isn't so sure, but they are aggressive with their pricing. TCL is another low cost option, and Leo has bought several of them for the Brickhouse Studios.

William bought a solid state drive and didn't really notice an improvement in speed. Leo says that SSDs are faster at reading data than spinning drives because there's no seek time. However, if the PC is older, the I/O bus may become the bottleneck. The SATA port needs to be at least SATA3 to take advantage of the SSD. He may need to get a better motherboard. The newer way to do it is to use a PCIExpress SSD and add a PCIe card. Then he would see a significant boost in performance.

G. Scott wants to "declutter" his Samsung Galaxy Note II. Leo says he loves the hardware that Samsung produces, but it's loaded up with junk. Leo wishes he could get a pure Google experience with the Note. Leo suggests using a different Launcher, like Nova Launcher. There's also ADW and Apex. This will give him a pure Google Experience, but it doesn't get rid of the junk, it just hides it. For that, he'll have to root it.

Audience QuestionsHour 2

Dave wants to upgrade his projector for movies. Leo recommends the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 2030. Quality is great, and there's several HDMI connections. He'll want to make sure it has sufficient "throw," and he should be mindful of the cost of replacement lamps. Epson says it should last about 6,000 hours. They aren't cheap when they do need to be replaced, though.

What about LEDs? The Chatroom says LED projectors are only 600 lumens, so they're not very bright compared to UHD lamps. He also shouldn't skimp on the actual screen. Monoprice.com has very affordable screens.

Jim changed ISPs and outlook now gives him a message saying the server doesn't support the encryption chosen (SSL/TLS). It only happens about 10-20% of the time. Leo says that's an odd thing. It could be security software that's running against it. Jim should try disabling his security software to see if it works. If it does, then the antivirus software is causing the issue and using a different antivirus may be the solution.

Sean wants to know Leo's thoughts on the Raspberry Pi computer. Leo says it's a very interesting concept. Raspberry Pis are small, cheap computers that teach computer science to kids. Great for building projects. It runs Linux, and a lot of people use it for building home theaters. This episode of KnowHow on the TWiT network shows how to use the Raspberry Pi.

Sean also wants to know where he can see the New Year Eve broadcast that Leo did. Leo says it's going to be on youtube.com/insidetwit. Justin.TV also has it.

Bob does training videos, and he'd like to get rid of the mic in front of his face. He'd like to use a LAV mic, but he can only hook them up to his camera. How can he plug them into his PC via USB? Leo says there are a lot of USB sound device converters called DACs (digital audio converter) like the Griffin iMic. It costs just $39 and will allow Bob to connect his LAV mic to his PC's USB port.

John is making the switch to a Mac Mini. He wants to know if he needs an Apple Cinema Display to use it. Leo says no, any PC monitor will work just fine. Dell makes great monitors. John should make sure it has an HDMI connector. This is a great, affordable choice for those looking to get into Macs!

Audience QuestionsHour 3

Max bought a Panasonic Viera Plasma HDTV. Leo says those TVs are great. Max paid the Geek squad to come out and calibrate it. Leo says Max was probably lucky, as it's unlikely the Geek squad is professionally trained for monitor calibration. It's best to get it out of dynamic mode. "Movie mode" is best, then he should play with the contrast and color until it's to his liking.

Max is thinking about getting a sound bar. Can he get surround sound with that? Leo says that it's simulated. He prefers a theater in the box with an AV receiver. There are great choices there. A Denon AV receiver is great. Then he can get some really good speakers. Left, Right, Center (vocals), rear speakers, and subwoofer. That's why HTIBs are great, because he'll get it all.

Alex has outfitted his entire house with Philips Hue Lights. Now he's looking to step up his sound game to Dolby 5.1 surround sound. He's looking at a Sonos sound bar for his Apple TV.

Leo says that Sonos wireless speakers have some special sharing technique that offers zero latency. It can play internet radio, such as Pandora. It's fantastic. The Sonos sound bar is very good, too. And using the Sonos connect box will bring his standard stereo amp into the mix. But Alex's question is, can he wire his Denon amp into the Sonos system so he can enjoy his home theater system? Leo says the Sonos Connect box will do that, along with the Internet. It will give the amp all of Sonos capabilities. TV may be the tricky part though.

Carl keeps hearing about Cryptocoin. Is it the modern day gold rush or a pyramid scheme? Leo says that it remains to be seen. Value is reliant on the full faith and credit of the US government. All currency is based on that faith. But Toshi Nakamoto created BitCoin, which is a digital currency. There's no government backing it. The benefit, though, is that it's anonymous. But it can also be stolen just as easily, and there is no central bank or authority. If governments start banning it, like China has, it could doom the concept and make BitCoin worthless.

Should Carl try and invest in it? Leo says no. It's too risky and speculative. Interesting to watch, sure. But he shouldn't put money into it at this stage.

Steve has a 47" Vizio that he's had for a few years. But after an hour, the color begins to die out until he turns it off for awhile. Should he get it fixed or just buy a new one? Leo says that it sounds like a poor solder connection, but at $400 for a repair, it probably isn't worth it since a new TV would cost $600.

All HDTVs have interpolation to handle with motion, but Steve doesn't like it because it looks plasticy. Leo recommends turning that off.

Leo says that LED is the way to go. Also, Steve should get the backlit LED models, not the edge lit.

Blake is tired of the rising prices of DirecTV. What are her alternatives? Leo says that it's still probably cheaper than cable. Of Course, Blake could "cut the cable" altogether and stream everything. But live broadcasts would still be an issue.

This Week in Tech News

On July 29th, Microsoft launched Windows 10 (Threshold) and so far, Leo likes it, a lot. However, Leo says users shouldn't be in a rush to upgrade because it was launched early, and there will be another more polished version coming out in the Fall. So if you're not in a rush to upgrade, don't. Added features include a replacement for Internet Explorer called "Edge," and it's not really ready for prime time just yet, as some plugins like Last Pass don't work. So Microsoft also added Internet Explorer to continue to use. Ugh. Edge though, will be more done in the fall.

Most of the 14 million are doing a straight upgrade, but Leo says that a complete clean install is always best. But the jury is out how to actually do a clean install. So Steve Gibson says that once you do the upgrade, go into the control panel and reset it. That will, in essence, create a clean install.

After reading the end user licensing agreement last night, Leo has amended his comments from yesterday and said it's nothing new than what Microsoft has done with any other version of Windows and that users shouldn't be concerned that Microsoft is stealing their data or ratting them out to anyone. Leo's been using WIndows 10 on several different platforms and he's quite pleased with the changes, the improvements and the return of the Start Button. And while he still believes users shouldn't be in a hurry to upgrade, it's not a big deal if they do. Just let Microsoft update it in it's own time, and maybe follow the suggestions outlined by Steve Gibson to reset Windows after you've updated. That'll make it essentially a clean install. But make sure you backup your data first.

Microsoft will access, disclose and preserve personal data, even data in private folders, if they determine that it's required by either law enforcement, or other reasons. Leo says that means that Microsoft has a back door and can see anything you do on your computer whenever they want. But Leo also says they probably have no choice and often, they won't be able to warn us, so they're warning us up front. But the question is, WHY would they build that capability into Windows in the first place? Microsoft also "claims" it's for our own good. The good news, though, is that while it's automatically opted in, you can opt out by not using the express settings when you install Windows 10. Take the long road and wade through the 13 pages of privacy settings you'll have to jump through to make sure your data is kept safe and secure.

A recent study done by Google on its security blog comparing the security practices of regular users versus the security experts. Regular users said antivirus topped their list of security priorities, followed by using strong passwords, changing passwords frequently, only visiting websites they know, and not sharing personal information.

Security experts' say installing software updates is the number 1 priority, followed by using unique passwords, use two-factor authentication where its available, use strong passwords, and use a password manager.

The reason why Apple is going to a subscription model as opposed to the iTunes music purchase model turns out to be due to waning sales. More people are listening to streaming music than are buying music and downloading it. So it makes sense that Apple would want to get into that business with a subscription service. It's why they bought Beats. And their $10 a month service is competitive as well.